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Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, are pioneers in the field of a genome editing technique known as CRISPR, but the first U.S. patent was awarded to Feng Zhang, Doudna's partner at startup Editas Medicine. Charpentier, who founded CRISPR Therapeutics, says she retains some intellectual property rights. Doudna says the platform allows multiple players.

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Emmanuelle Charpentier is one of three scientists who developed the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, which she would like to see used to cure sickle cell disease or to make plants that are naturally resistant to disease. Science "is a little bit like entering a monastery. This is really the thing that drives you. ... You need to be a bit obsessed," she says. Women in science often find it difficult to have a family, and they face intense scrutiny, she says.

Emmanuelle Charpentier, the 48-year-old co-inventor of CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing technology, has worked at nine institutes in five countries over the past two decades, building labs on her own -- "from scratch," as she says -- and amassing awards along the way. This year, she was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. "I am just trying to keep working and keep my feet on the ground," she says.

The US Patent and Trademark Office is considering arguments in a dispute over who owns the rights to the CRISPR technology. Biochemist Jennifer Doudna applied for a patent in May 2012 covering the core technology, and biologist Feng Zhang applied in December 2012 but with a request for expedited review. Zhang was granted the patent in April 2014, and the University of California at Berkeley challenged the validity of the patent. The USPTO panel will determine who has the rights to the foundational CRISPR and related patents.

Among the contenders for Nobel prizes are Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who were instrumental in developing the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, observers say. Carolyn Bertozzi is also a contender for her work on bioorthogonal chemistry, or chemical reactions in live cells and organisms, which Bertozzi's lab is using to develop medical imaging probes.

Jennifer Doudna is a sought-after speaker with a host of scientific honors who is known in particular for her work with CRISPR technology. Doudna credits much of her success to her partnership with her lab manager of two decades, Kaihong Zhou, while Zhou says Doudna "has great vision and foresight for science."